Cast Gillian Jacobs in More Period Dramas

The role of Mary Jayne Gold has lingered with actress Gillian Jacobs since wrapping production on Transatlantic. "It doesn't really leave you," Jacobs tells Town & Country on the phone ahead of the show's premiere on Netflix. "I feel inspired by the story and the experience."

Jacobs, perhaps best known for appearing in the NBC sitcom Community as Britta Perry, is magnificent in this show as the real-life Chicago heiress who worked with Varian Fry (Cory Michael Smith) to rescue European Jews, intellectuals, and artists, during World War II. "It's an incredible part, and just such a rare opportunity as an actress," Jacobs says. There was much that drew her to the role: "the story itself; selfishly, the character; working with Anna..." she trails off. "It was irresistible."

Jacobs arrive on set über-prepared to play Mary Jayne, having spent time diving into research on Mary Jayne's life and learning as much as she could about the role of women during World War II. "Gillian, she's got incredible comic timing. She's such a good actress," Transatlantic creator Anna Winger tells T&C. "She's really raising everyone's performance was in the scene with her." Winger adds, "She does a ton of research about all kinds of things. She knew a lot about this time period, she was really interested in the costumes, she was really interested in the role of women at that time."

Jacobs's co-stars attest to what it was like working with her on set. "Gillian has something so strong—she's technically perfect, she carries a certain kind of lightness in her play that I'm still learning," her co-star Lucas Englander tells T&C. "I learned a lot from her, especially watching the series, From that professionalism of how she creates arcs."

Ahead of the premiere of Transatlantic, Jacobs chatted with T&C about playing Mary Jayne, her love of old films, and her favorite memories from set in Marseille (hint: that Surrealist dinner party!).

What was your research process was like for Mary Jayne. How did you figure her out?

Just trying to read as much about the real life story, and Mary Jayne herself. It was pretty amazing once we got to Marseille, because I think the story of Varian Fry and the Emergency Rescue Committee is more widely known in Marseille than it certainly was for most Americans. I had never heard of this story at all.

That was also an incredible experience once we were there. I remember walking by the American Consulate and seeing a plaque to Varian Fry, and getting a chance to actually go to some of the real places where they actually were. I kept thanking Anna and the producers throughout the shoot that they had ensured that we got to shoot in Marseille in some of the real places, because that was also just such an incredible and rare experience.

Being in Marseille, did you feel like closer to her and her story?

Oh, yeah. They restored the Hotel Splendide lobby as close as they could back to what it looked like at the time. We're shooting in these rooms—the remaining rooms in the building that are as close as we could get to what that the rooms were like. It's so incredibly helpful. Just walking around Marseille and spending five months there, that helped so much as well.

As an actress, are you now like, 'on location or nothing'?

[Laughs] I mean, I've been very lucky to get to work in lots of different places. But this was that rare special where you're doing something that is true life, historic and you're actually in the real place—I don't think that I've experienced that before.

The story is centered around Varian and Mary Jayne, but you get all these famous figures that pop up throughout like Peggy Guggenheim and Hannah Arent and Marc Chagall. How did you handle being rooted in so much history on this production, but still stay grounded in the story on the page?

I love art. I'm not an art historian by any means, but all of these names were very familiar to me, and I did not know this aspect of any of their stories. You have to balance trying to do enough research that so that you feel like you understand the story, its context, and what is the immediate history that's preceding these events, so you understand how these people all wound up where they are are. But then you also just have to, as an actor, focus on the scripts that are written and the scenes as they're crafted. At a certain point, you have to shift from research to actor and storyteller.

The scenes that they wrote were really compelling, the actors were so, so wonderful, you just kind of get immersed in that pretty quickly. And the sets! The chateau that they found—when we're shooting at that Fort [Fort Saint-Nicolas], that's right in the heart of Marseille. You just find yourself transported into the story we're telling pretty quickly.

Heiress is such an interesting way to describe someone—but we see that Mary Jayne really tries to use her inheritance for good. What do you make of that?

I think that she felt compelled to help in any way that she could. Certainly in our version of the telling of it, initially, what she feels like she has to offer is her money, her wealth. The story that we're telling is that she's also realizing that she has more to offer beyond that. In real life and in Transatlantic, she was an incredibly wealthy woman who had this unique ability in this moment to help out and she chose to do that.

This is obviously a fictionalized version of her story—in that sense, why do you think it was important to show a romance storyline for her amidst all this awfulness that's going on?

That was part of Anna's vision for the story is that you would see these people in the midst of this incredible crisis and the incredible urgency that they felt day to day trying to save people's lives, that people were still falling in love and the whole range of human experience was happening alongside this incredible urgency and life and death circumstances. It's not just my character, a lot of the main characters, they have these stories as well.

What were some of your favorite parts of filming the series?

Oh my gosh! I mean, that Surrealist dinner party... It's just amazing when you're sitting around the table. I'm thinking about me being in the scene, but then I'm thinking about Mary Jayne Gold, the real person being in the company of some of the greatest artists of the 20th century and feeling like she has the ability to help them out.

The way that they slowly transformed the chateau, with adding more and more of the surrealist art as it went on, that was, that was pretty amazing to see. And I thought it was so well done, and the original art created for the show was really beautiful.

Wearing the shoe hat and the incredible costuming in that whole sequence, that whole episode. Just looking around that room and all of those actors, the set, the art direction, the production design... all of it kind of coming together was, was pretty astounding.

Have you ever worked with a dog as a scene partner like that for so many scenes?

I'm trying to remember. [laughs] I had a cat on Love. I'm trying to remember have I had a dog? I must have—Fear Street, also for Netflix, I had a dog but not as many scenes as Transatlantic. Maybe Netflix, all my projects for Netflix, somehow I wind up having an animal.

In the final scenes we see Mary Jayne returning to the States. In real life, she got kicked out of Vichy France, but then she returned to France after the war and lived her life out there. Did you think about that, or did you have your own head canon of what she was doing next after the show ended?

I read a quote from her saying that this was the most important year of her life. This was the year of her life that was the most consequential and important. She lived a long life but I think that this was really, the most important period of her life. I tried to not have foreknowledge—you don't want to bring, you want your character to be living in the present. I think even at the time, she had a recognition of that to some degree.

I felt that as an actor in my final scenes with Lucas [Englander], of not knowing what's going to happen to him or to me, but knowing that this is the end of probably the most important chapter of my life in some way. She went on and had a long, long life and as you said, moved back to France. If you're saying, is there a sequel? Is there a season two? I'd be more than happy to play Mary Jayne at any other time in her life. From her own telling this was the most consequential year of her life.

Would you tackle another period drama?

Oh yes, please! It's really interesting because as a kid I watched a lot of movies from the 1930s and 40s and 50s—I was that kid! For me, that was the first era of film that I really fell in love with. I would absolutely love to do more pieces like this. That would be a dream come true. I got to exist in the 70s, I did two episodes of the show Minx, I've got to be in the 70s, and now 1940, but I would love to do more pieces like Transatlantic.

Were there figures from those movies of your childhood that you drew on for Mary Jayne or she came to life on her own?

Not directly. I actually rewatched this Katharine Hepburn movie Adam's Rib last night just randomly—I was Katharine Hepburn obsessive as a child. So that must have gone in somewhere deep in my brain! But I don't think anything literally for this part, but I certainly watched probably more movies from the 1930s and 40s than most 10 year olds.

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